My name is Tony Rossi and I would rather be dead at 25 and have people remember my name than to live to 75 and have nobody remember who I was. It has always been this way because nobody, not even my piece of s*** father who was killed in a drunk driving accident (he, being the guilty party of course) or my mentally ill mother who tried to gut him like a fish after he was caught in the act of infidelity cared. I never called the two of them mom or dad because those are titles that were meant to be earned. They were never in my life because the former was a deadbeat who left when I was 7 after he realized just how troubled mother was, and the latter was consequently admitted to the psych ward. I suspect she was treated like a problem rather than a person over there and I couldn’t blame them. My older sister Marie and I never got adopted so instead, we slept at the local church and were forced to wear the same clothes over and over again.

I don’t remember a time where Marie looked me in the eye. Her body was always sulked in disappointment as she conversed with me and sometimes she would clench her fists as if she needed to defend herself from me. Growing up, she had tried so hard to be my mother figure, but I blame her for never being able connect to me. Oftentimes, Marie would preach that if I were more personable, then I’d be more likeable. She didn’t understand that I simply didn’t see the good in people and vice versa. So, in high school, everybody hated my guts, but I didn’t mind because I never saw the use of friendship. College was next, so I got a degree in liberal arts just to be able to say that I earned the title of a college grad. Living in inner-city Chicago only reinforced my misanthropy, and I would see the scumbags getting locked up for battery and drug charges for instance. This was ecstasy to me, so joining the FBI was the next logical step. That nonmarketable liberal arts degree actually paid off because a degree was a requirement for the FBI. As far as they knew, I didn’t have any apparent psychological problems, so the interview process was simple and unlike the others that were already in the Bureau, I wasn’t forced to move to another city. The Bureau always preferred to move people away from their hometowns to avoid the off chance of them favoring friends or family. This wasn’t an issue because Marie became my estranged sibling and never spoke to me after I found a place in the heart of the city. Distance did not make her heart grow fond of me, but I wasn’t bothered because I wanted nothing to do with her.

In my case, having to live alone in an apartment complex in my mid-twenties wasn’t as bad as one might expect. The lack of human interaction gave me a sense of euphoria, but what had always bothered me was the insomnia that came with my restless mind. Having this feeling of not knowing sleep had strengthened my animosity towards the scum of Chicago and seeing the city’s mobsters run amok with no consequences had started to p--- me off. 

Just two months after joining the Bureau, I was assigned to go undercover to expose the Chicago Outfit. The plan was to act as a mob associate, extract information from wiseguys (high-ranking members of organized crime groups), arrest mob boss Frank De Luca with this incriminating evidence, scare other members so they turn informant and testify against the mob, which, in the end, will lead to the fall of De Luca’s empire. To infiltrate the Outfit, it was an absolute necessity to earn De Luca’s trust. I mean, guys like De Luca would order me to get whacked the second they found out that I was an undercover FBI agent. Under these circumstances, the Bureau sent me to the dog pound for seven months prison time on two counts of battery which were fabricated to augment my credibility as a mobster.

It had been two years since the last time I’ve had contact with the FBI and just two years after getting into the Unit, De Luca wanted to meet me at the Copacabana and so I went. This was when I knew I was in way too deep with the Unit. I suspect that the Bureau had since erased me from their files. It was sobering to become the very thing that I once resented, but this didn’t disturb me.  It turns out that De Luca wanted to make me a made man, which meant that I was going to be a fully initiated member with protection. It didn’t bother me because this meant that I was untouchable, that nobody could f*** with me and that I could f*** with anyone who wasn’t made and if some wiseguy tried to bust my balls, they would have h--- coming to them. To be honest, going undercover gave me a sense of misdirection from this desire to be remembered. When a wiseguy gets made, they get picked up, taken to a room for an induction ceremony, and take an oath of silence. Frank sponsored me, meaning that I had earned his trust. So, seeing that he was the only one at the Copa didn’t catch me by surprise. But, what concerned me was the fact that he had ordered me to sit down across from him like a parent would do if their child misbehaved. I recalled our conversation going something like this.

“Have a seat, Tony. You see, I’ve heard some things. Things that concern me. You know that I’ve vouched for you, which means that I went out of my way to risk my reputation for you. This means that I trust you, but now, I’m not so sure. Do you understand where I’m getting at?” Frank said as he pulled a glock from the pocket of his single breasted coat.

“No,” as I felt the nervous sweats seeping from the crown of my hairline.

At this point, Frank pointed the gun dead center to my nose and said with unbridled confidence, “of course you do, whaddya think I am, stupid?”

“Frank, I’ve been in your unit for two years now. Two years! Hasn’t it crossed your mind that if I was the rat, you’d be locked up by now? For God’s sake Frankie, I thought you were going senile because the drugs were turning your mind into mush, but your age has caught up with you as well,” I said as I felt my body go numb with anxiety.

“So you do admit that there’s a rat! If you knew that there has been a rat in my unit, then why the f*** haven’t you said anything? You’re going to need to explain this to me like a 3 year old because the logic escapes me,” said Frankie as his voice raised from hoarse and raspy to p------off like a raging bull with the pistol still pointing at the bridge of my nose.

“Maybe so, but it’s not me, Frankie! Look, I’ll say it again. I am not the rat! You know the last thing I would want to do is cross you.”

“Alright Tony,” sighed Frank as he began to put the glock back in his jacket. “Just don’t go around trying to bust my b---- over here will you? He said as his voiced started to calm down. “You know that at any moment an old hag like me could get wha—“

It was at this moment that I pulled out my .45 Cal and sent good old Frank to the almighty. I deliberately made the decision to shoot him in the face to ensure he didn’t have an open casket at his funeral. Staring at his lifeless corpse as it laid on the once stainless Copa carpet didn’t feel as satisfying as I would have thought. When Frankie and I went on hits together, he said he could tell a lot about a person by the way their body hit the ground. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t say the same for him. A pool of blood trickled from the temple of his head down to his size 14 boots and the police sirens began to ring louder and louder. As time passed, my mind went spiraling in a million directions so I stayed at the Copa, not knowing what to do. It wasn’t supposed to go this way, but it felt so right. I could only imagine how the Bureau felt the second they learned that their operation had gone to h---. Nevertheless, it felt right because this was the first time that I felt I’d done something important; something I would be remembered for. Besides, this has always been the goal, to have people talk about me at the dinner table. Because of this, I didn’t feel the least bit of regret when the handcuffs clutched my wrists as I was taken to the police station.

Some detective whose name I can’t remember questioned why I would go out of my way to kill De Luca when a case was being made against him and the Unit. Silence shrouded the room because an answer was never given. I was arrested for doing the Bureau a favor and as I sit here writing this in solitary confinement, I ponder if they will ever understand me. They don’t understand that a desperate man such as I had nothing to lose and still doesn’t. They don’t understand that a little ambition goes a long way.